My Most Useful WordPress Plugins (My “Cheat Sheet”)

These are life-saving WordPress plugins that I use on many of my clients’ and my own sites. Alright, maybe “life-saving” is a slight exaggeration, but these can definitely cure some of your worst WordPress headaches. I have tested each of these (except where noted) and vouch for their quality. I hope you find them as useful as I have. Let me know what you think in the comments!

Best Accessibility Plugins

Divi AccessibilityThis is a great plugin that fixes some of the accessibility problems with Divi, and lets you see where your site is in violation. For example, it has a tool that flags instances of text that do not meet accessibility guidelines for contrast. Really great if your site needs to be accessible.

Best Admin Plugins

Admin Columns: Clean up the adminI hate it when plugins add columns to the “All Pages” and “All Posts” admin area, cluttering them up with useless info. The worst offender is WordPress SEO. Admin Columns lets you purge useless columns. You can instead display custom fields in the columns – really useful for customizing!

Adminimize: Stop your clients from effing up their new siteGet rid of confusing and unnecessary menu items in your admin area so your clients don’t screw up the nice site you’ve just made for them.

Custom Dashboard Page: Create a custom admin dashboard for your clients!The default WP dashboard is basically useless. This allows you to assign any page to be the new admin dashboard page!

Plugin Notes: Add admin notes to your plugin listThis is something I could have used on many client sites where the client sometimes installed strange plugins. It allows you to add notes such as why a plugin was installed and who installed it.

Radio Buttons for TaxonomiesIf you would like to limit Categories or custom taxonomies to one per post, this plugin does it by changing the check boxes to radio buttons. Simple and just works!

WP Help: Help your clients and yourself remember how your funky admin worksCreate help notes in the admin area for your clients. Document custom post types, custom fields, weird plugins, whatever you want. I use this on almost every site now, both for my clients, and for myself, when I’ve forgotten how the site works six months from now.

WP RollbackThis plugin will allow you to “roll back” plugin updates. Can be a life-saver if a plugin update messes up your site. Honestly I usually just do it through FTP, but if you don’t have that ability, use this.

Best Ad Insertion Plugins

AdRotateAllows you to create ads to place on your site using a shortcode. Ads can rotate through the same location on your site. Includes analytics capabilities.

WP Simple Adsense InsertionGives you a shortcode to easily insert Google Adsense ads anywhere you want in your content. I prefer this to plugins that insert ads automatically, even though that is more convenient. Ads are too important to be left to chance. You should hand-insert them at the right places.

Best Anti-Spam Plugins

AkismetIt comes pre-installed with most WordPress installations, and it is good if you don’t mind having to register it on WordPress.org. It is free for non-commercial applications.

WP SpamShield (no longer free)This was a great alternative to Akismet which didn’t require registration. Unfortunately, the folks at WordPress pulled it from the WordPress repo, and now it’s a paid plugin. It was an excellent antispam plugin that didn’t require a captcha or other inconvenience. Note, if you use forms with built-in captchas (such as the Divi form), you’ll need to disable the captchas in order to work with WP SpamShield. Read about other potential incompatibilities.

Best Backup / Migration Plugins

Auto Upload ImagesLet’s say you’ve used the WordPress Importer to move some posts to a new site. The posts are migrated, but the image URLs are still pointing to the old site, and none of the images are actually migrated. The solution is the Auto Upload Images plugin! Just install it and re-save the post. All images will be migrated and URLs adjusted in that post like magic! Just be sure to de-actiavte it when done!

Backup and Restore DropboxI haven’t tried this yet, but it has been suggested by some of my readers and has great reviews. Backs up your WordPress site to Dropbox and will do restores.

DuplicatorThis used to be my “go to” plugin for backing up and moving WordPress sites, but it started failing on some GoDaddy hosts (probably not the plugin’s fault and more GoDaddy’s). It still works for me if I exclude the huge “uploads” directory from the backup, so sometimes I use it to back up the database and program files only, or on other hosting like SiteGround.

Updraft Backup and RestorationThis is my new standard backup plugin. You can schedule regular backups to services like Dropbox, which is great. Works on difficult hosts like GoDaddy, because it breaks up huge zip files into multiple files. And it’s free! (For Multisite support you have to use the paid version though.) You can also use this to migrate sites, although you’ll have to use a different tool to update your database URLs.

VaultPressI recommended VaultPress to my clients for a long time because it’s made by Automattic, the makers of WordPress, and it’s no-hassle, saving you from having to provide your own cloud backup storage. But, Automattic has now eliminated the stand-alone VaultPress plugin and requires Jetpack to use it. If you’re already using Jetpack, it’s no problem. If you’re not, I’d recommend one of the other backup solutions on this page.

WP Migrate DB ProThis just handles the database and media files only, but it does some great things. It will automatically do a search-and-replace in the database if you need to migrate from dev to production, or move to a new URL. The ability to migrate media is invaluable for keeping a dev site in sync with your production site.

Best Code Insertion Plugins

Per Page Add to HeadJust like the previous plugin, but lets you add different head code per page. Good for tracking pixels.

Include MeThis is for adding content in the form of PHP files to your content. I use it for adding content that is shared across of Multisite network.

Reusable Text BlocksAfter Global Content Blocks went away, I went into withdrawal until I found Reusable Content Blocks. This allows you to create chunks of content or code that you can put almost anywhere using a shortcode. Very useful!!!

Best Commenting Plugins

Comment AttachmentIf you do use WordPress’ native commenting system, this plugin allows users to upload file types of your choosing, including images, videos, and PDFs, to their comments. File size limits are selectable. Not compatible with Jetpack comments unfortunately though.

WP Open Comment Links in New WindowI hate it when links in comments open in the current browser window. This plugin opens a new window for comment links, which is how WordPress comments should have worked in the first place.

Best Database Plugins

Better Search ReplaceThis is a really lightweight, easy-to-use database search-and-replace tool which searches through custom fields (specified by you). I’ve used it to swap out particular shortcodes for a different one, as well as to update URLs in the database before launching sites.

Change DB Prefix: Change your MySQL table prefixesIf, for whatever reason, you need to change your MySQL database table prefixes in an existing site, this is the easiest way to do it! Just enter your new prefix and press a button.

Delete All Comments Easily: Delete all comments in one fell swoopI once had to service a site that had over 100,000 spam comments. After trying to delete them within WordPress (very slowly, 200 at a time), I quickly gave up and found this plugin, which deletes all comments in about a second! The database size went down from 500MB to 50MB. Note this plugin deletes ALL comments, not just spam comments, for those times when you want to start with a clean slate.

WP Migrate DB Pro: Push from production to staging and backIf you’re setting up a staging site and want to be able to push from production to staging and back, this is the plugin for you. The free version will just generate the database zip file, which you’ll have to upload yourself using phpMyAdmin. The paid version will do the complete push for you. The more premium version will sync images (which is probably what you’ll need). It’s expensive at $200, but worth it if you’re trying to do this type of stuff.

WP Optimize: Clean up your databaseRemove old post revisions and spam comments to save space and speed up your site. Run on an old side whose database has become bloated, then uninstall.

Best Debugging / Development Plugins

Advanced Code Editor: Be badIt is not good practice to edit code from the Admin. But, if you must, use this. It features really nice color coding and line numbers. Uninstall when you’re done because being able to edit code from the Admin is not great for security.

Database BrowserLet’s say you’re working on a client site with no access to PHPMyAdmin but you need to see the database. Voila! This plugin let’s you do that! Just uninstall after you’re done though! You can also export the database to CSV, possible providing a poor-man’s migrating feature.

Theme Check: See how messed up your theme isChecks your theme for anomalies.

P3 Plugin Profiler: See which plugins are bogging down your siteIs your site loading too slowly? Wondering how much each plugin contributes to the load time? This plugin will give you a nice pie chart of exactly how much time each plugin adds (cough, Jetpack!) You can uninstall it when you’re done.

Query MonitorSimilar to Debug This, but this has more emphasis on the WP queries on your site. Very useful.

What the File: Find out which template file is being usedBesides having the best name for a plugin ever, it’s a great diagnostic tool. Tells you which theme files are being used by any WordPress page so you can figure out which you want to tweak. Invaluable if you are doing template development or debugging!

Best Divi Builder Plugins

These plugins work great with the Divi Theme or Divi Builder Plugin.

Simple Divi Shortcode: Place any Divi element inside another!This great plugin allows you to instantiate any item from your Divi library using a shortcode. I use it to place Divi elements inside of other Divi elements such as accordions or tabs.

Disable Visual Editor WYSIWYG: Protect a page or post from getting clobberedThe WordPress Visual Editor has a way of screwing up JavaScript and even some HTML (especially blank space). Use this to disable the Visual Editor tab on any pages or posts that you specify, so that they can only be edited in the more benign Text mode. Easy to undo per page if you need to.

Re-Add Text Underline and JustifyThe folks at WordPress inexplicably removed the underline and text justify buttons from the editor in version 4.7. This plugin simply gets it back. It has no parameters and no fuss.

Best E-Commerce Plugins

WooCommerce: Sell stuffThe de-facto standard WordPress shopping cart plugin. Tons of features and options through plugins. Very configurable through the use of actions and filters. Kind of a steep learning curve though.

Minimum Order Amount for WooCommerceIf you want to enforce a minimum order amount for WooCommerce, this one just works. Unlike another plugin I tried, this not only displays a warning message if the user doesn’t have enough in his cart, it stops them from checking out.

Custom Product Tabs for WooCommerceAdd new tabs to your WooCommerce product pages! This is cool because you can create “global” tabs that you re-use on multiple products or tabs for specific products.

WordPress Simple Paypal Shopping Cart: Sell stuff simplyIf you don’t want to deal with the complexity of WooCommerce, and only have a few things to sell, this is a good choice. You can set up a store in minutes. It can handle physical or digital products.

Best Events Management / Calendar Plugins

Events Made Easy: Set up a complete events management websiteA very powerful events management plugin with lots of customization possibilities. Takes some time to learn, but it’s worth it if you do events sites. Does not require user login for people to sign up for events – just name and email address. This is my favorite events management plugin. I’ve never had to use a different one.

Google Calendar Widget: Display a Google calendar feed in your sidebarSimply does what it says. You can adjust number of events and how much detail to show.

Best Feature Solutions

Accordion ShortcodesIf you need accordions on your site, this lightweight plugin provides a simple shortcode solution with no CSS styling so you can make them look like whatever you want. Accordion sections can default open or closed.

Category Posts in Custom Menus – Automatic dropdowns for your category menu itemsIn your category menu items, this allows you to have a dropdown menu with a preset number of posts from that category, automatically updated when you add more posts! This is one of those features that I think should have been built into WordPress core.

Jetpack: Add the kitchen sinkMost people either love or hate Jetpack. I am ambivalent. It offers a painless way for people to subscribe to your blog, some nice on-site analytics, a cool photo gallery, and useful Widgets. Just be sure to deactivate everything you’re not using, because Jetpack can really bloat your site (especially the cool CSS editor, unfortunately).

TablePressAn easy way to insert user-updatable tables in your content!

WordPress Book ListWow, if you need to display a set of books that you are recommending, or that you want to boast about reading, this is the plugin to do it. Simply copy the books’ ISDN numbers from Amazon, and it will import the cover image, description, author, and a whole lot of other stuff you probably don’t need. Amazing!

WP TilesIf you want tiled images in your posts without Jetpack, check out this plugin!

Best Form Plugins

Contact Form 7: The classic lightweight contact form pluginThis is a super popular clean and simple lightweight contact form plugin, but it’s for coders only. Editing requires messing with HTML and CSS in most cases. For database storage of submitted forms, I use Contact Form 7 Database Addon. There is built-in support for reCAPTCHA V3, but it doesn’t work in all cases for some reason. Instead, you can use the Advanced NoCaptcha ReCaptcha plugin to add reCAPTCHA V2 and it works like a charm.

Ninja Forms: Drag and drop form editing!Ninja Forms is much easier to use than CF7. It’s all drag and drop. Note, be sure to adjust the “From” email address to match your site’s domain or else emails sent might be held in spam filters. Storing of email in the database is included.

Best Forum / Question-and-Answer Plugins

DW Question & AnswerOK, I have not used this personally, but it has good reviews and looks good. Enables you to set up your own version of Quora or Stack Overflow. Best of all, it’s FREE.

CM AnswersAnother Q/A plugin which I have used. It’s good but requires a good deal of setup and CSS to make it look good. There is a pro version which you might need to buy to get the features you need.

Best Front-End User Upload Plugin

User Submitted PostsThis plugin gives you a shortcode which generates a front-end form that allows people to upload posts with title, content, and featured image (among other things). Don’t worry, the post will be uploaded in a Pending status so it won’t appear immediately in the front end.

Best Custom Post Type / Custom Field Plugins

Advanced Custom Fields: Add custom fields to Pages and PostsOne of the most commonly-used plugins to customize WordPress sites. Lets you add custom fields to pages and posts. Often used together with the next plugin, Custom Post Type UI. The free version is very usable but there’s a paid pro version that adds some cool features like repeater fields.

Custom Post Type UI: Create custom Post typesGreat for creating custom post types and taxonomies to use in your own theme or plugins. In the latest version, they revamped the UI which made it more cumbersome to use, but it’s still worthwhile. It even generates code that you can paste into your theme or plugin, allowing you to delete this plugin afterwards, which is awesome.

Pods – Custom Content Types and FieldsThis plugin combines the functionality of Advanced Custom Fields and Custom Post Type UI, allowing you to create custom post types and the fields that go with them (or with built-in post types).

Best Advanced Functionality Plugins

WP Crontrol: Create your own scheduled tasksI use this to run scripts at recurring intervals. You set up a WordPress action hook, and this executes it at your specified times. Works great!

WP Mail SMTP: Set up reliable emailingWeb server email is usually not reliable. So, switch to this plugin, which utilizes the far more reliable SMTP service that many hosting providers give you for free. Requires a third-party SMTP email account. Note, I read that this doesn’t work with GoDaddy shared hosting unless you use their SMTP email (added note: GoDaddy’s SMTP email no longer works for me with this or any other email plugin). Here are the settings for Gmail, but I’ve heard this plugin works better for Gmail.

Best Audio Player Plugin

WonderPlugin WordPress HTML5 Audio PlayerThis is a responsive HTML5 audio player that does a good job of displaying both single songs as well as albums. There are a variety of good skins to choose from. The free version has plenty of functionality. I was skeptical about this plugin at first because it’s not in the WordPress repository, but it’s been working great for me so far. I haven’t found another player that is as good at displaying albums/playlists.

Best Google Analytics Plugins

Google Analytics Dashboard for WPThis is a full-blown GA plugint with dashboard that shows your stats. I tend to shy away from these types of GA plugins due to the bloat, but some people love these, and this one is highly rated.

Google Analytics for WordPressThis is a lightweight plugin that doesn’t track outgoing clicks, but it does simply add the Google Universal Analytics code and exclude admin visits.

Best Image Optimizer Plugin

ImsanityI needed a simple plugin that would prevent clients from uploading huge images. Imsanity does the job. It also can re-size large images already uploaded. This just works! It has a five star rating. Zip file size is 151kb compared to 7.64mb for EWWW below.

EWWW Image OptimizerLike Imsanity, this plugin limits the size of uploads and can search through your Media Library for large images and compress them. But, this plugin has a lot more features which I don’t use, so I mostly use Imsanity instead. This plugin works with Multisite – just do a Network activate. I’ve heard good things about Smush, but the free version of that keeps an uncompressed version of the image on the server. Note, this plugin is disallowed on WP Engine hosting.

Best Mailchimp Form Plugin

Mailchimp for WordPressCreate an API key in Mailchimp, enter it into this program, then start creating very usable Mailchimp signup forms in your WordPress admin. After form submission, site will redirect to a page of your choice.

Best Map Plugins

HTML5 MapsIf you need a simple clickable map of the United States or other country without showing roads, this plugin is awesome. There are a variety of countries to choose from, or even individual states. If you pick the U.S. map, each state is clickable. You can define what happens on hover and click, and you can have tooltips, popups (with a free third-party plugin), link, or information appearing below or to the side of the map. You can also define clickable points. If you need to define groups of states, get the premium version.

WP Google MapsWP Google Maps is great when you want to include a Google Map on your site showing pins or regions. The pro version allows users to get directions and has other features. This is probably the most popular Google Maps plugin, with over 400,000 downloads.

Best Mobile Detect Plugin

WP Mobile DetectI use responsive design, but there are cases where you can’t avoid having to detect whether your site is being displayed on a mobile device or not. Unfortunately, this seems to be an abandoned plugin, so caution is advised.

Best Modal Popup Plugin

Popup MakerWhether you need a popup that happens automatically after page load, or upon button press, this is simply the best modal popup plugin that I’ve found. You can create popup themes to customize padding, shadow, background opacity, and many other parameters. You can put any content in the popup that would normally go in a WordPress page or post. They just did this one right!

Best Multilingual Plugin

WPMLThis is one of the few plugins on this page that I have not tested myself, but I have it here because so many folks on the forums have endorsed it. It’s also not free, but it’s affordable for what it does.

Best Post Plugins

Duplicate PostGreat if you need to make copies of pages, posts, or even custom post types (when set up to allow that). Will even copy custom fields! Another plugin that does this well is Post Duplicator.

Fancier Author Box: Connect personally with your readersAdd an “author box” at the end of each post to tell your readers about yourself and give your blog a human touch. See end of this article for an example!

Page Links ToOh man, I wish I had known about this plugin before. Basically, in any listing (archive) view, it replaces a link to the Post or Page (or custom post type) with an alternate link that you can specify. This is great for portfolio pages where you want the project images to link to an external URL, not a page on your own site!

Post Types OrderThis plugin adds a cool drag-and-drop interface to the admin to order your Posts any way you want. It also works with custom post types, which can be very cool!

Best Post Rating Plugins

Post RatingsAllows visitors to rate your posts on a five-star scale. Light-weight plugin that works well. You can insert post ratings via shortcode or hooks, so you don’t need to hack your theme. I chose the Post Rating plugin over WP PostRating because I couldn’t get the latter to show ratings in my Divi blog feed using hooks without causing a memory error. I didn’t like the idea of having to hack the theme either.

Best Pagination Plugins

Most WordPress themes do not have page numbering on your archive pages by default (they usually just have “previous” and “next” links). These plugins add more fancy page numbering and navigation. But they do require template modification!

WP-PageNaviAdds pagination navigation controls to your post archive pages. Very customizable and easy to use as long as you know how to modify your template files.

WP-PaginateAlso adds page navigation. Also requires template modification. A bit simpler appearance out of the box. (Note, for custom queries, your query variable must be named $wp_query).

Best Redirection Plugin

RedirectionA better way to redirect URLs is to do it in your .htaccess file (even better is to do it in your hosts file, but you might not have access to that). I like Redirection because it allows me to set up my redirects, then export code which I put into my .htaccess file. I then deactivate Redirection because doing redirects in a plugin can slow down your site, and if you’re not careful the logs can bloat your database.

Best RSS Feed Plugins

RSS isn’t dead! If you want to show a feed from several other sites on your site, RSS is the way to go.

FEEDZY RSS Feeds LiteThis is the best way I’ve found to add a blog feed from another site to your site. Supports caching. Free version supports images too!

Best Search Plugins

RelevanssiThis enhances the WP search in many ways including fuzzy matching, weighting, boolean logic, searching custom fields, and others. Many say this is the best search plugin. However, this is a heavy-duty plugin and there is some setup and pre-caching required.

ACF: Better SearchI used to use Search Everything to make sure searched looked in Advanced Custom Fields, but that is no longer suppported. ACF: Better Search works just as well and is supported!

Best Security Plugins

Advanced Automatic Updates: Stay ahead of hackersUpdate your WP core and/or plugins automatically. Sends you an email when updates are done. Not suitable for all sites, because a plugin update could break your site, but I use this on all of my non-critical blogs to save me a ton of time and keep them secure.

Disable REST APIDid you know that your WordPress site’s REST API is enabled for anyone to use? That means someone can easily download all of your posts with a simple script (I know, I wrote one). I use this on all of my blogs

Disable XML-RPC: Protect your site from DDoS attacksXML-RPC is a fairly useless feature for WordPress (remote publishing anyone?) The one thing it is good at is attracting DDoS attacks on your site. This plugin disables xmlrpc.php by adding code to your .htaccess file. One of my clients has a high-traffic site which was attacked about once a month. This stopped it. Note that disabling this will prevent the Jetpack Publicize module and probably other modules from working.

Rename wp-login.php: Prevent brute-force login attacksDoesn’t literally rename the file, but does some tricks to redirect. Great for preventing brute-force attacks trying to log into your site. Also lets you rename /wp-admin.

WordFence: Protect your site from hackersI use this on ALL of my sites to protect against hackers. Does regular scans for malware and blocks known evil IP addresses. Just be sure to disable “live traffic logging” because it bloats your database faster than a bean-and-cheese burrito from Taco Bell. Note, this plugin is disallowed on WP Engine hosting for that and other reasons.

Best SEO Plugin

The SEO FrameworkAlthough Yoast reigns king, it has a huge codebase, gets updated too frequently, and has been documented to slow down sites. I’m experimenting with The SEO Framework because it claims to be lighter weight. The SEO Framework zip file is 350KB while Yoast’s is over ten times larger at 3.91MB. I like the UI better, and it’s overall less intrusive than Yoast. It’s got a five-star rating in the WordPress repo. One thing, though, is that if you want to eliminate the category base in your URLs, you’ll have to install a separate plugin to do that. I like Remove Category URL.

Yoast SEO:This is the most popular SEO plugin and works well. Some have complained lately that Yoast SEO gets updated too often and is getting bloated with too many features that no one wants however.

Best SSL Plugin

Really Simple SSLAfter you get your SSL cert, install this plugin. It’s got great reviews and just works by modifying your .htaccess file.

Best Tab Plugin

Tabby Responsive TabsIf you need a really simple tab shortcode plugin, this one does the trick. It’s easy to use and lightweight. Plus, there are cats on the info page! Great unless you need to use the same tabs in multiple places on your site, in which case you should use a tab plugin that utilizes a custom post type for the tabs.

Best User Access Plugins

MembersCreates a new “Roles” admin menu item under “Users” that allows you to edit the capabilities of all WordPress roles, and to create new ones with custom capabilities.

UnconfirmedOh man, this plugin is a lifesaver if you’ve ever been in this situation: You’ve created a new user and had the site email them their password. The problem is, they didn’t receive the email. Now you’re stuck. Their account isn’t activated so you can’t reset their password. You can’t even delete their account. You have to wait a few DAYS to try again. This plugin lets you see all unconfirmed users and manually confirm them, so you can re-send the email or create a new password for them. Invaluable!

User Access ManagerThis is a more advanced user access plugin for when you need the big guns. This allows you to put users and any post type or page in groups. Then, only people in those groups can edit that content. Can also limit visibility on the front-end as well. It’s kind of tricky to set up due to minimal documentation, but if you fiddle with the settings (a lot) it will do what it claims. I haven’t found a comparable free plugin that does this.

User Role EditorPretty much required if you use Ultimate Member on Multisite and want local admins to be able to approve or edit users. Also great for creating new user roles with specific limited capabilities.

Best User / Membership Plugins

Custom User Profile PhotoYour user photo comes from your Gravatar profile, which you may not want for all of your sites. This plugin lets you customize your user photo.

Export Users to CSVExports your users to a CSV file. Note, you may have to adjust your php.ini settings to allow greater export file size.

Import Users from CSVThis plugin works great for importing members in a CSV file. Works great with Ultimate Member.

Ultimate MemberThis is a very popular membership plugin that has tons of features. Pretty flexible with some learning curve. Good plugin, but updates tend to break things, so beware.

Best Social Media Plugins

Easy Twitter Feed Widget: Show a Twitter feedSimply shows a Twitter feed in a Widget iframe. Does not require a Twitter app or signin.

Twitter Hashtag Feed Widget: Show a Twitter hashtag feedShows a Twitter feed for a hashtag in a Widget. This is a bit more involved to set up. People complain there’s no documentation on how to get the Twitter app credentials. Read how to do it in the WP Twitter Feeds documentation.

Scriptless Social Sharing: A lightweight plugin for adding social sharing buttonsThis is a super lightweight and simple plugin for displaying the major social network sharing buttons. It just works with no hassles! However, note that it won’t show sharing buttons on archive pages, and it doesn’t show share counts.

Simple Social Icons: Display your social network pagesJetpack has a social icon widget, but if you’re not using that, this is a simple plugin to display links to your social network pages.

Best WordPress Multisite Plugins

BackWPUP Free: Back-up your WordPress multisiteThis is one of the free backup plugins that works with multisite. I just started using it and I like it! I allows scheduling of backups to a folder or different storage services. If this works well, I might start using it on my regular WP sites!

Multisite Plugin Manager: Show or hide plugins from local adminsIf you go to your Network Admin -> Settings -> Network Settings and scroll to the bottom, you can turn on or off visibility of plugins to the child sites. But what if you some plugins visible to local admins and others not? Use Multisite Plugin Manager to do this.

NS Cloner: Replicate a multisite child site on your networkThis is a wonderful tool to copy a Multisite network sub-site. Great for replicating sites on your Multisite network.

Unfiltered MU: Allow multisite Admins to add HTML tags to admin fieldsI discovered that WordPress filters out HTML tags for Multisite regular Admins (but not Super Admins). This is annoying and prevents regular admins from adding Google Analytics code, for example, to a theme’s admin field. This plugin undo’s that “feature”. This is pretty much needed on every Multisite install.

Best Widget Plugins

wp-forecast This is the best weather widget I’ve found. Unlike a lot of the others, it doesn’t require obtaining an API key to use. It is super configurable with lots of options. And it’s accurate (one other I tried wasn’t). The only slight downside is that it requires CSS styling, but that is kind of an advantage if you’re a developer (not so good if you’re not).

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